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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Environment
Letters

We should blame men for the climate crisis

The Cyclops Steel Works in Sheffield in the mid-19th century.
Men ‘are they the instigators of the ruinous Industrial Revolution, which led to the vast contamination of air, water and land’. The Cyclops Steel Works in Sheffield in the mid-19th century. Photograph: Science & Society Picture Librar/SSPL via Getty Images

Arwa Mahdawi claims that men are not responsible for climate change (Don’t blame men for the climate crisis – we should point the finger at corporations, 27 July). This lets men off the hook a little too lightly. Not only are they the instigators of the ruinous Industrial Revolution, which led to the vast contamination of air, water and land, but men have also spent the last 5,000 years fighting, killing, colonising, enslaving, marauding, and yelling about football.

Who invented the capitalist system that Mahdawi agrees is so destructive? And who owns the corporations she so rightly condemns? Men.

So, no need then to quibble with the cited Swedish study. Of course we shouldn’t blame individuals. We should blame all men.
Lucy Ellmann
Edinburgh

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